Lissa woke up unexpectedly, small feet hitting her repeatedly in her side as she was lying there in bed. Before she could register what was happening, she heard the sound of her phone's alarm beginning to go off, meaning that whatever rude awakening this was supposed to be, it was perfectly timed. She yawned, sitting up and stretching while turning the alarm off as she looked around the room she'd been sleeping in for the night, taking special care to note that her own feet were dangling over the edge of the bed. "Auntie Lissa, go back to sleep," she heard her niece mumble while half awake, rooting her in the reality that her awakening had come at the kicking of little Lucina. "Too early to be not sleeping."

"Sorry there, kiddo, but I can't spend all day just sleeping like you can. It's time for me to get my big-girl job and start working for a living." Reaching to ruffle her niece's already-messy hair, Lissa couldn't help but laugh at the girl's reaction to what she'd said, which was to roll over in her bed and take control of the pillow her aunt had been using moments before. "Glad to see you're so understanding, Lucy. I'll see you at breakfast, I suppose." The little girl mumbled something in her sleepy state, tossing her head even further onto the pillow. "If you even get up, that is."

Stretching a bit more, Lissa threw what was left of the blankets covering her off to the side, scooting off the bed as carefully as she could to not disturb Lucina more than she already had. "I just can't believe that, after all this time, now's when I have to start working. Seriously, couldn't Chrom just, like, keep supporting me even though I don't even live here anymore?" Her question was asked in a tone barely above a whisper, not meant for anyone to hear aside from herself. She stood up once her feet were both solidly on the ground, still looking around at the small room she'd been in for the night. "And then he makes me come back the night before I start the job he's making me get…"

Her eyes landed on her niece still sleeping in the bed, Lucina wrapping herself around the pillow that was nearly half her size. "At least Lucy got a good night's sleep out of it, I suppose. And she stayed in her room all night." A long yawn escaped her, one that made her wish she could just lay back down and rejoin her niece in slumber. "Just wish I could have gotten half as good of sleep as she did, especially before today."

It wasn't that she was unaccustomed to sleeping in her niece's small bed; in fact, she had spent many weeks straight sleeping there just to keep Lucina in her room and out of her parents' hair while they tried to sleep. It was more along the lines of something weighing heavily on her mind, a worry that had manifested itself into a dream that had kept her from properly sleeping all night. As she got herself dressed and ready for the long day to come, she tried to keep her mind on the job she was about to start, but her thoughts kept drifting back to the dream, to the point that the last thing she did before she left the bedroom was write a reminder note for herself on her phone: don't fall in love with any co-workers, period!

Even with that method of trying to move past the dream, she was still dwelling on it when she went down to breakfast with her brother and his wife. It wasn't that long after she'd taken her seat at the table, looking deep in thought, that Chrom cleared his throat to ask a question to her. "Lissa, I see you're focusing hard on something. Tell me, is it the new job? Or something else that I should be aware of?"

She vaguely heard what he'd asked, but didn't respond, her mind still racing with what had kept her up most of the night. He called her name again and she caught it, snapping back to reality with a surprised shake of her head. "Oh, uh, I'm just thinking about this stupid and weird dream I had last night. You know, those kinds of dreams where bad things happen to you with people you know?"

"You tend to get those kinds of dreams a lot," Chrom said with a laugh, smiling at his sister as she rolled her eyes at him. "Well, it's true. Remember the night before you moved into your own place, and how you dreamt that you somehow got moved in with Maribelle rather than where you were meant to be? You were scared that whole day that you weren't going to be living on your own."

"Okay, to be fair, that dream was really realistic and it seemed totally plausible that Maribelle would do that sort of thing to me!" Slamming her hand down on the table before her, Lissa accidentally made a few drinks slosh out of their cups a bit, but she quickly apologized for it, wiping up what she could, before talking more about her dream. "Besides, this one was really different. It involved you having gotten me a job at a school and your friends all being there and me—okay, no, I'm done talking about it. Those words are never going to come out of my mouth."

"Which one did dream-you fall in love with thi—oof." His attempted question was stopped by his wife nudging him in the arm with her elbow to get him to stop. "Okay, okay, I'll stop the questions about the dreams. Gods, Robin, it's almost as if you don't like me asking my sister about her dreams when she has them."

Looking to her saving grace with thankful eyes, Lissa knew exactly why Robin had stepped in where she had. The two of them had spent many mornings talking to one another about strange dreams they'd had, always finding comfort in knowing that someone else in the house had the same struggle. "Who it involved doesn't matter, it just matters that they're not any sort of guy that I'd ever be interested in!"

"That sure answers the question then." Getting nudged once more, Chrom's laughter came to its natural end. "Nice to know that you're not going to take the easy way out and date one of my friends. Good to see that branching out is a thing you're willing to do." He expected a third nudge, but when it didn't come, he looked to Robin in confusion. "Er, don't you usually object to me saying things like that to my 'young and impressionable' sister?"

"I do object to it, but I already touched you twice. Once more and you might think about using it against me." As Robin spoke, she moved to nudge him again but changed her course at the last second, stroking where she'd been hitting with her hand. "Besides, you're right about her being willing to branch out. Seeing someone okay with not just taking what's handed to them is always nice."

Lissa squirmed a bit in her seat, Robin's words not sitting quite right with her. "I'd be more than okay with just taking the money I get from having dead parents and all that," she admitted, not wanting to withhold that information, "but no, Chrom said I had to get a job so I'm not paying for my home with inheritance money. I don't really want a job, not where he's making me work." Now she looked to the two with a plea. "Please, let me work anywhere but there. Maybe the counseling center Emm started before she died? Ooh, or maybe wherever it is you work now, Chrom! Let me work with you!"

"Now Lissa, you know that you have to start somewhere low on the ladder, just like the rest of us." Chrom waggled a stern finger towards his sister. "The coffee shop's a great first job and you'll come to enjoy it before you know it. Emm made me work there before I worked anywhere else, and now I'm doing the same to you."

"At this rate, I think I'd prefer the dream school scenario," she muttered under her breath, being overheard by her brother, who balled up the closest piece of paper to him and threw it at her. When it bounced off the top of her head, it fell to her side, allowing for her to pick it right back up and toss it at him. They went back and forth for a moment, not saying anything as they threw the paper, but when small footsteps could be heard entering the dining area, they ceased their fun.

"Mama, Auntie Lissa woke me up today and she was not nice," Lucina whined, her voice showing how barely awake she was, even with being on her feet. "Make her go sleep not in my room!"

"I will certainly do that," Robin told her, offering the little girl a spot on her lap, which Lucina eagerly took. "I'm not entirely sure why your father insisted she sleep here last night, but if it happens again, I'll keep Lissa from being mean to you in the morning."

"Thanks, Mama." The little girl rested her head against her mother's chest, sighing contently as her mother's fingers ran through her short blue hair. "You're the bestest."

Catching a bit of the glare her brother was giving her, Lissa raised her hands in defense. "I so was not mean to her this morning! I let her go right back to sleep after my alarm went off, and that was even after she woke me up by kicking me!"

"I'm not saying that you could have been unintentionally mean, but keep in mind that Lucina is a little girl, and her idea of mean is going to be a lot different than yours." Chrom stopped the glare, reaching for the paper they'd been tossing at each other once more. "For instance, if she saw me throw something at you, she'd think it's mean, even if we know it's not. But enough of this conversation here, we've got to get going so none of us are late to work today."

Silence fell over all of them, as they looked between one another, no one asking who was supposed to be the one in charge of preparing breakfast for the group. "I was under the impression that either you were going to cook today, Chrom, or that you and Lissa were going to get something on the way to the coffee shop, and that I was just in charge of getting Lucina fed before I dropped her off," Robin finally said, taking note of how the siblings had started shooting each other accusing looks. "And based on the fact that we've spent five minutes here trying to solve this problem, I think the second option is what's going to have to happen today."

"I think you're right." Chrom's agreement came as he got up from his seat, only bending down to kiss both his wife and his daughter before he came up behind Lissa's chair and rest his arms on the top of her head. "As a proud older brother, I'm glad I get to be around for this one's first day on the job. Even if, ahem, I don't work there any longer."

"Which is why I'm so confused about how you got me the job." Lissa pushed his arms off of her and stood up herself, barely coming to her brother's shoulder as she tried staring him down. "Seriously, why can't I work where you work now? It's got to be a whole lot better than working somewhere with food and drinks and rude people!"

"I'll have you know that the job is a lot more than that. You'll find in due time that what you do there will shape things to come." Propping one of his arms on his sister's head once more, Chrom laughed. "Why, don't you know that if it wasn't for working in that place, Robin and I never would have met? Can you imagine what my life would be like without her?"

"Either you'd be trapped in a loveless marriage or you'd have died from your own stupidity," Robin answered, knowing that he'd been looking for some sappy answer that he wasn't going to get from her. While his face turned red and he sputtered to try and come up with a response, Lissa laughed so hard that she doubled over, her hands gripping her legs to keep her standing as she laughed. "Nice to see that your sister agrees with me."

"Yes, sure, it's lovely. Now why don't we just get going?" Still not having come up with a clever response, Chrom's reaction was to leave as fast as he could, something made difficult by just how hard Lissa was laughing at what had been said. She was snorting and choking on her own giggles, to the point that Chrom had to nearly drag her along with him; she didn't calm down until they were already most of the way into town, and even then, every time he would try to talk to her, she would start laughing once more at how he'd been put in his place by his wife.

"Lissa, please, stop laughing for five seconds so we can talk about this job," he pleaded, listening to his sister snort mid-laugh once more. "You're going to walk in there and Cordelia is going to regret listening to me about hiring you when she sees that you can't control yourself when you hear something that was, admittedly, not that funny."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Chrom, because that was hilarious." Stifling another giggle with her hand, Lissa tried to calm herself the best she could. "Or maybe it's me being tired that's making this so funny. I haven't not-slept like that in ages."

Now it was Chrom's turn to laugh. "Except you slept well enough to dream about romancing one of my friends. Again. Let's not have you actually act on that though, please and thank you. The last thing I need in my life is to have you tagging along on group date nights, given that all my friends are…" His words trailed into inaudible mutters that she wanted to ask him to repeat, but she knew he wouldn't. He shook his head and resumed speaking, leaving the conclusion of that point lost to the ages. "What I'm trying to say is, Lissa, just because your first job is where my first job is, you don't have to keep up the 'being like me' thing any further than that."

"Trust me, I don't want to keep it up. I've got goals and staying working in a coffee shop for the rest of ever isn't going to cut it." She clasped her hands together, put on a dreamy expression, and said in her most obnoxious voice: "I want to meet a guy and have a whirlwind romance and fall headfirst in love, and I want him to support me for all of time with his work ethic and his rugged good looks." The last few words were accompanied by giggles as she couldn't take her joking seriously any longer. "Oh gods, that was painful to actually say. Who am I, Maribelle? I just want to be happy and my own person, not someone's arm-candy lady!"

"Don't joke about that sort of thing, I honestly thought you were channeling her for a moment and I wasn't exactly thrilled with it." They were sitting outside the little shop now, the bottom-floor store in a big office building, both in various states of laughter from what had been said. Chrom was first to calm back down and to return to the matter at hand. "Now go on in there and show Cordelia and whoever else she's got working that you deserve this job for more than just being my sister."

Shooting her brother a couple finger guns, Lissa nodded. "You got it, Chrom! I'll knock her off her feet so fast that she won't know what to do with me and she'll tell me to go and get a better job!" He didn't find that funny at all, telling her to get out of his car and that he'd be back by later. "Wait, back later? What are you talking about? To come get me, right?"

In her heart, she knew that's not what he meant, but at least suggesting it to the car leaving her behind made her feel better about things. As there wasn't anything else keeping her out of the shop, minus her not wanting to actually go inside, she sucked up her pride of not having worked a day in her life thus far and stepped into the building, expecting to see every table filled and a line at the counter. She was instead greeted with absolutely no one in sight, minus a lithe redhead standing behind the counter, arms crossed over her chest and looking Lissa down with a stern expression. "You're right on time," she said, watching Lissa's every step, "and while that's a good thing, couldn't you have tried to be early on your first day?"

"I didn't know that was a requirement. Sorry for being on time, I suppose, Cordelia." She had known that the woman in charge here was a bit prickly when it came to following rules, but how should Lissa have known that she would have needed to be early? "Don't mind me asking this, but were you like this when you worked with my brother?"

There was a slight twitch to one of Cordelia's eyes as she heard the question, but she dropped her stern face and cracked a smile at the thought of working with Chrom. "No, he was in the position of power between us. When he left he gave me reins of the shop, which wasn't what I had wanted but it was a nice gesture. What a shame that I've yet to find someone to pass the position on to, but now that you're here, maybe my luck will change." She opened the latch to the door for behind the counter and Lissa came around it, seeing the shop from an employee's perspective for the first time. "The work itself is rather easy, draining at times, but easy overall."

"How can it be draining? It's just making drinks and giving neat pastries to people, isn't it?" Having only ever been on the customer side of the shop before, Lissa was in for a rude awakening when her first training shift started and she found out that a lot more went into things than what she'd expected.

For starters, she had to learn that making drinks wasn't just a magical event that a machine did all on its own. "You have to memorize the drink catalog," Cordelia told her, pulling out a large binder of different recipes that were all in use, "and don't think that just knowing the names of the drinks is suitable. You must know every ingredient in case someone wants to substitute something out, and looking in the catalog to check wastes time." After dropping the binder on the counter, a loud thud echoing through the still-empty shop, she reached for another one. "And you must also memorize the ingredients for our baked goods on display. These, however, you can always call into the back for verification on."

"Why, is there someone back there all the time?" Lissa timidly asked, suddenly very scared about what else this job was going to throw at her. "Or am I just going to be screaming into an empty kitchen like a fool?"

"There will always be someone back there, don't worry. You'll come to know our baker very well in due time, but she's not in today until this afternoon so we'll have to skip your introduction with her until later." Cordelia placed the food binder on top of the drink one and pushed them across the counter towards Lissa. "Now, back to what you must know, there are manuals on how to work each and every machine in this shop in the office, if for some reason my teaching you doesn't stick. And it might not stick."

Side-eyeing the two bulging binders with fear, Lissa swallowed down some whiny thought she'd had and gave a small nod. "Understood. Gotta memorize what's in everything and learn how to work the machines here. Sounds like it'll take some time, but I think I can get it down. When do you want me to start doing that?"

She had been expecting to be told right then, but Cordelia had other plans. "You can work on it in your down time, or you can take the binders home and work on memorizing them there. Next week, you will be tested on your mastery of the menu, so don't put this off for any reason whatsoever." Cordelia could see the look of horror in Lissa's face at that, and she laughed. "Oh, don't worry. It's actually quite easy, and if you don't get it the first time, I'll work with you until you do get it. Your brother would tell me that he took several tries to get it right, and that was with a much smaller selection of items."

"I'll try my hardest to do better than Chrom at it then, definitely." Taking no notice to how Cordelia's face lit up at the sound of Chrom's name, Lissa looked around the small area behind the counter and grew increasingly scared for what kinds of havoc she could cause back there. "But should we really be letting me back here? I don't think this is going to end well if you expect me to make something."

"That's why you're in training, you've got to learn everything before you do it. Since there's no one in here aside from us right now, how about you tell me what you'd like to drink and I'll show you how to make it?" The offer was a nice one, and although Lissa knew Cordelia was making it to teach her how to do her job, she went along with it, pointing out her normal order on the menu. "Oh that, that's a super simple thing to make. Ever worked a coffee maker at home before?"

"No, I don't think we've ever had one." Lissa paused in thought, before rescinding her statement. "Wait, we did, but one time Chrom boiled pasta in it and Robin threw it out after that. I'm pretty sure we never used it for coffee though."

"Then the first lesson we'll have today is showing you how to use a coffee maker." There was a tinge of disgust in Cordelia's voice as she spoke, something that Lissa didn't dare address. "I will go first and make your drink, then you'll imitate me and try to make the same thing for me. Fair enough?"

It was plenty fair, and Lissa knew it, but when they tried she couldn't manage to get her drink to match the one Cordelia made in any capacity. The one she got to drink tasted so good and so well-made, but every one she handed off to Cordelia was either too bitter, or had too much flavor syrup, or wasn't warm enough. "Oh man, I'm hopeless at this," she eventually said, leaning against the wall as she watched Cordelia take another sip of an incorrectly-made drink. "And I'm supposed to make people these things for money?"

"You'll get better at it in time. Everyone's first day is a bit rough." Casting aside the cup after being unable to take more than a few drops of the disgusting drink, she tapped her finger to her chin in thought of what to have her trainee do next. "Here, why don't you start on reading up on the recipe for the drink? Perhaps knowing the actual method and ingredients will be of use to you."

It was while Lissa was flipping through pages of the drink binder, sitting in the corner of the area behind the counter, that she heard the door to the shop open and several people come filing in. They were in the middle of conversation, but all of their voices sounded familiar to her ears, and although she knew she was supposed to be studying she couldn't help but look up over the counter to see who'd just come in. Of all the faces in the world to see, she wasn't expecting to see her brother's, and she gasped in shock at his appearance. "What did I tell you about me coming back by later?" he jokingly asked, waving at her. "Besides, you left your stuff at my house and I had to swing it by anyway."

"Hey now, no chatting with my new employee," Cordelia interrupted, cutting off Lissa before she could say anything. "She's hard at work trying to learn everything we've got her, and if she had even an ounce of talent in making coffee, I'd have her make your order today. But she's not quite at that point in her training, so I'll be taking care of you all today. The usual for everyone, I assume?"

"You know us all so well, Cordelia. It's almost as if we worked together for years, isn't it?" Chrom was still looking at Lissa as he spoke, even though his words were directed at the woman standing before him. "Someday I'd love to see if Lissa can handle our order, but you're right, it's not something a new hire should be doing."

"Give me a few minutes and I'll have it all ready for you then." Turning her back to the counter, Cordelia started her work on some of the various machines there, turning them on and getting them prepped for making the order she'd been tasked with. "Oh, and while I'm in the kitchen, please do not distract my trainee," she warned, stepping away from the machines to push through the door to the next part of the shop.

"Don't distract you? Does she think that's really possible? Why, you were distracted from the moment I came in, weren't you?" As Lissa nodded and stood from her seat, approaching where her brother was, he motioned for his friends to come up to talk to her as well. "Now, let me tell you a secret about working this place on mornings when we come in. You ready for this?"

She looked from him to his friends, all of whom were looking back at her with smiles on their faces. She'd known all these guys for a long time (and had admittedly dreamt about them on many occasions, that morning being the most recent time for one of them), and for them to see her in the position she was currently in felt a bit weird. "Yeah, I think I'm ready for it," she said, shifting her eyes down to the counter. "Tell me how bad it is."

"For starters, we all get the exact same thing every time. Nothing too complicated. Two black coffees and two with cream and sugar. A cup of whipped cream on the side. Four bagels. And that's it." Chrom had been using his fingers to count what he was naming off, holding up nine fingers when he was done. "Except on occasion, which is every time we come in here, we end up with five bagels." He raised the last finger. "We've never once ordered or paid for five bagels, and frankly it's a bit weird that we always get that many."

"Means an extra bagel for me, which is okay by all means!" That was Stahl talking, the only one of Chrom's close friends that she wasn't also close with. He was the one who had always led to their kitchen being low on food every time he came over, which no one seemed to have a problem with because he was an entertaining fellow. "Hey, Lissa, if you take our order one of these days, do whatever it is Cordelia does and give us that extra bagel. You'd be my favorite if you did."

"Let's not talk about my sister like that, shall we?" She was sure Chrom didn't mean to sound super protective there, but then when he added on to his statement she realized his protectiveness was completely intentional. "I understand that you're in the market for a lady, but please don't make it my sister. Free food doesn't make a relationship."

Stahl looked saddened by the denial for all of a second, before he shrugged it off. "It really doesn't. Sorry for making it weird there, Lissa."

"I didn't take it as being weird, no worries!" She smiled up at him, before once again looking between the four guys standing before her. "Besides, I wouldn't ever even think of dating any of my brother's friends. You guys do your own thing and me do mine, yeah?" In her mind, she was telling herself not just that she'd dreamt about getting romantically involved with the three of Chrom's friends multiple times, but that getting with at least one, possibly two of them, in real life would never work out. She was mentally labeling them with their relationship statuses, a habit she had in regards to those guys that made her dreaming about them that much weirder.

"Lissa, you're doing the thing where you slip into daydreams mid-conversation again." She hadn't even noticed that talking had continued once she started thinking about these guys, and when she blinked back to reality she had two hands in her face, one waving rapidly and the other pretending to rub at the corner of her mouth. "You were close to starting to drool, and I had to play the role of a good older brother to put a stop to it."

"Yeah, and you were missin' out on what we were sayin', obviously!" The waving hand was retracted, but what replaced it was the wild-eyed and overly excited tanned face belonging to one sort-of best friend of her brother's. "Me and Frederick really had a good argument goin' there and you missed it!"

"I wouldn't consider what we were having an argument by any means, but it is a shame that Lissa wasn't paying attention for it, yes." Pushing the face back from being so close to Lissa's, Frederick sighed when he saw she was once again starting to drift into her thoughts. "And she's ignoring us once again. This might just be a tad too early in the morning for her to deal with certain brands of insanity that are represented here."

The door to the kitchen opened again and Cordelia came out, a bag of bagels in her hand. "What did I say about distracting my trainee?" she asked, a scolding tone to her voice. "Now she's going to not want to focus on her memorization of the menu and she'll never be able to take your order correctly."

"Give her time. She's my sister, I know she'll be able to manage learning everything quickly enough to take our order the next time we come in." Chrom pulled his hand from his sister's mouth and used it to give Cordelia a thumbs-up that she sighed at. "I'm saying that as the former manager of this place, not as a proud older brother."

"Then let her get back to what she should be doing, will you?" Cordelia set the bag on the counter and went to her coffee machines, while Lissa hung her head in shame at already being scolded for not doing what she should have been. How was she expected to not want to talk to her brother and his friends when they came in? Without another word to them, she went back to her seat in the corner and resumed going through the recipe book, while Cordelia finished their order, rang them up, and sent them on their way.

After passing Lissa's bag of things over the counter for her, Chrom and his friends left in a chorus of goodbyes; once the shop was empty again, Cordelia went back into the kitchen and left Lissa there to do her studying on her own. She felt horrible at already having ignored her manager, but at the same time, she was hopeful that Chrom's insistence that she'd do well was enough to make Cordelia forgive the transgression. "Soon we'll be getting in the normal crowd, and I expect you to watch me intently as I work," Cordelia said when she came back from the kitchen once more, her arms holding a tray of baked goods. "It's not going to be much, given how nice the weather outside is, but it'll be a bit of a rush."

"And I'll just be getting in your way, but okay, I'll watch." Lissa closed the binder, feeling like she'd learned next to nothing, and stood back up, looking on as Cordelia put her tray into the pastry case. The sight of the various bagels on the tray reminded her of what Chrom and Stahl had been talking about when they were there, but when she went to ask, the words caught in her throat. She'd already made it obvious that she was going to say something, already having Cordelia's attention, so she forced herself to ask anyway. "My brother said they order four bagels when they come in but they always get more. Is that allowed, giving free food to customers?"

"I do no such thing. Every item they receive is paid for." Flustered at the accusation, Cordelia dropped a pastry or two before turning to look at Lissa with reddened cheeks. "Don't ever ask me if I'd give your brot—er, that group of men, anything for free, because the answer is no. I would never."

"Then why do they get five bagels?" The cheeks only got redder, and Lissa knew that she was asking the hard-hitting questions. "Ooh, Cordelia, do you have a crush on my brother? Is that it?" She mumbled her answer, but the slight head-nod was enough that the words didn't matter. "He's totally married though! And, well, he doesn't even eat that extra bagel anyway so maybe you shouldn't break the rules to give it to him."

"I do not break the rules, nor would I ever over a guy." Cordelia turned her head to not let Lissa see just how bright her face had gotten, almost matching her hair in terms of color. "Your brother has always looked like he could use some extra food and so I've always provided him with extra out of my own pocket. He's never brought it up with me, but I'm not surprised he's not the one who eats it."

"Well, just saying, but Stahl totally said that if I gave him that same bonus bagel every day, I'd be his favorite, so…" Lissa moved her hands together to form a heart with them. "Maybe you should look into chatting him up sometime? I'm not saying it's a good idea, he is kind of weird and food-sexual, but he's a fun guy."

Her face going a bit back to normal, Cordelia once again turned towards Lissa, this time a bit confused. "Which one is he?" she asked, showing that she'd only ever paid attention to Chrom when he and his friends came in. "Please tell me that he's not the one that likes starting fights while on store property."

"No, that one would be Vaike. I wouldn't tell anyone to ever give him a chance, not unless they can put up with a total bonehead all the time." Lissa laughed, thinking back to just earlier in the day when he'd gotten up in her face just because he could. "I don't even know how Chrom's still friends with him, but the fact that he sort of has a girlfriend just blows my mind and I feel so bad for her."

"So then this Stahl fellow must be the one who doesn't occasionally bring a female in here with him," Cordelia concluded, noting Lissa's excited gasp at what she'd said. "What, were you unaware that the other man brings a lady with him?"

Lissa was now waving a hand frantically, trying to sort her words into order so that she could explain why she was so thrilled at hearing that. "I didn't know he'd bring her with him ever, no! That lady is my best friend in the whole world!"

"I'll keep that in mind." Immediately after speaking, Cordelia shuddered, realizing what this meant. "Lissa, you're not allowed to spend all shift talking to her if she comes in," she warned. "I work alongside my best friend and we don't talk the day away, so you cannot do the same when your friend comes to visit." Seeing Lissa open her mouth to ask an obvious question, she shut her down right away. "And no, you're not allowed to give her anything free for being your friend. Any surprise extras must be paid for by someone."

Her mouth snapped shut, right as the shop's door opened and people started coming in. Business started to pick up then, and Lissa went from talking to watching everything intently, seeing how dedicated to getting everything right Cordelia was. On occasion, when there were lulls in the flow, they'd strike up their conversation once more, talking about friends and what could and could not be done when they came in. The basic rules boiled down to no freebies and no talking when customers were present, but Cordelia framed them to seem a lot more intense than they were.

A couple of hours into the shift, another woman came running in, opened the door to get behind the counter, and tripped over her own feet as she stepped back to the workstation, hitting the floor with a loud thud. While Lissa was concerned for the person's safety, Cordelia waved it off. "That's just what Sumia does when she gets here. Every day it's the same thing, her tripping over something and coming out of it just fine." Despite there being a customer whose order she was trying to take, she stopped to help the mousey-haired woman up off the floor, going seamlessly back to her work once everyone was on their feet. "Go get to baking, Sumia, because for some reason your mini pies are selling like crazy today."

"On it!" the new woman said, pushing her way into the kitchen without paying any mind to Lissa's presence. A few minutes later, she poked her head out of the door, looking at the young blonde with a grin. "You must be Chrom's little sister, and let me be the first to tell you that we are so excited to have someone related to him working here again! Maybe this means he'll come by more often!"

"Maybe it does, yeah," Lissa replied, before Cordelia repeated her instruction about Sumia getting to work. "Wait, why's she so thrilled about me being my brother's sister? Don't tell me she likes him too!"

Cordelia hushed her, due to there being a customer still at the counter, but once she wasn't actively taking and filling orders, she answered Lissa's question. "She does like him, but trust me when I say that she's moved far past him. Still doesn't stop her from getting excited when he's brought up in conversation, I suppose."

Lissa accepted the answer, not saying anything else on the matter, and the shift continued with her watching Cordelia do all the work. As the day droned on, Lissa felt more confident in being able to do at least a basic drink order, and she asked Cordelia if she could. "If you find the order you take is too complicated, let me know and I'll step in. But I believe you can do something simple."

"Okay, so the next one that comes in, I'll take it!" Getting mentally prepared for what she'd just volunteered to do, Lissa didn't pay any attention to Cordelia's groan when the door opened and someone came in. She was just focused on the register and the counter and everything that she'd been watching get done, and her focus kept her from paying attention when a tall, dark-haired man came up before her, expecting her to take his order. She had to be gently pushed by Cordelia to look at the guy, and when she saw the unfriendly and cold face staring her down, she froze.

Not only had she just completely ignored a customer, but the guy she ignored was quite the attractive fellow.

A/N: I rather enjoy posting fics on characters' birthdays when those characters have prominent roles in the fic. And since today's Stahl's birthday, I wonder what that might mean for later in the story...